Reed Bunting © Steve Round
This winter Atlas map would come as a surprise to most 20th century ornithologists. Coward (1910) noted that ‘although a few odd birds, sometimes a male and female evidently a pair, frequently remain throughout the winter, the majority of Reed Buntings leave in the autumn’. They returned in mid-March as one of the earliest spring migrants. Boyd (1951) was used to only small numbers during winter in mid-Cheshire, where he acutely observed that they join the finch-Yellowhammer flocks in the hedgerows. Bell (1962) expanded on the description of their winter status by writing that few remain inland, and that in Wirral, birds from inland localities may make for the coast. During the mostly cold weather of the national winter Atlas, spanning 1981/ 82 to 1983/ 84, Reed Buntings were found in every 10-km square in the county, but only in any numbers along the Mersey valley and west Wirral, a statement that was echoed in the annual county bird report for 1986. From records submitted to the annual bird reports it is not clear when wintering birds became more widespread, but the Woolston report for 1992 noted that the recent run of relatively mild winters had changed their status and the county report for that year introduced one-line status statements for all species and, optimistically, declared the Reed Bunting a ‘common widespread resident’. There were noticeably fewer in the county in the colder winters of 1995/ 96 and 1996/ 97, when most birds were reported along the frost-free tide-lines and saltmarshes, but since then their wintering numbers have increased greatly.
Life in winter in Cheshire and Wirral is obviously finely balanced for Reed Buntings: the population comprises some residents and some partial migrants, and the equilibrium between them shifts from year to year. The smaller females especially are less able to withstand cold weather and move to the coast or fly south, or die. This is a much-ringed species and there are many records of migration, some as far as the south coasts of England and Wales: in 1990 a Woolston-bred female, for instance, moved to Devon for the winter and then back to Woolston in 1991. There appear to be fewer migratory birds these days, as climate change favours the sedentary individuals. Although the British Reed Bunting population is largely self-contained, there may also be some birds wintering here from continental Europe (Migration Atlas); ringed birds moving between Cheshire and Suffolk hint at such an origin.
The map shows that there is some contraction of range, with winter birds found in 323 tetrads, 104 fewer than in the breeding season. There were 252 tetrads with Reed Buntings present in the breeding and winter seasons, 71 occupied in winter only and 175 with breeding season presence only. There is no particular geographical pattern to these shifts, except for a withdrawal from much of the highest land in the east.
Reed Buntings gather into flocks outside the breeding season, but most gatherings are small. Only fourteen counts were submitted of more than 25 birds, all in stubble, set-aside or wildbird crops, with the largest, 50 birds, on the Dee saltmarsh. Communal roosts are another feature of their ecology, but only five were reported, with a maximum of ten birds apart from a substantial roost at Woolston estimated at more than 150 birds on 3 December 2006.
Analysis of the habitat codes submitted shows a wide range spanning all of the habitat groups: 53% farmland; 17% semi-natural grassland and marsh; 16% freshwater; 6% human sites; 4% scrub; and 2% bog. Outside the breeding season, Reed Buntings concentrate on small grass and weed seeds, and weed-rich stubbles are strongly preferred as winter feeding habitat (Wilson, Taylor & Muirhead 1997). Certainly, in this survey Reed Buntings were one of the small passerines most likely to be found in any suitable stubble (E7). The lack of weedy stubble is probably the main factor that reduced the carrying capacity of the winter environment for Reed Buntings compared to that of the early 1970s (Peach et al 1999); this loss has been only partially compensated by Environmental Stewardship options such as set-aside and specially planted seed crops, where Reed Buntings seem especially to favour millet. Observers noted a few birds at ‘human’ sites, and Reed Bunting is one of the species that occasionally enters gardens, especially in late winter as natural food supplies dwindle, but surveyors for the BTO Garden BirdWatch have reported few since 1998.
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